I have completed my stained glass project. Once I got going on it, it came together rather easily. But in the process, I managed to learn a few things about myself. Or maybe I just remembered a few things.

I regained some confidence that I can set goals and achieve them. I reminded myself that it’s okay not to be perfect. I allowed myself to be a more reflective person (no glass pun intended). And I relearned the importance of locating the Band-Aids before you start cutting glass (and fingers).

So what now? On to my next project! Maybe another window, something more challenging. Maybe something else entirely different. Writing the great American novel? The great American poem? Relearning how to play the guitar? Perfecting a chocolate mousse recipe? Learning to clog dance? The options are limited only by my imagination. Okay, and my budget, to some degree.

It’s amazing how much motivation you can stir up once you get past the initial inertia. The trick now for me is to keep the momentum going. Keep learning, keep stretching, keep growing… because I’ll never be a totally finished person. I hope!

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” ~ Michelangelo

There are at least two ways to create art. One way is to add in. You take a blank canvas and add paint to make the image you wish to portray. Or you take a blank piece of paper and add lines with pencil or charcoal or even crayon until you have the depiction you desire. Another way to create art is to take away. To carve a statue, Michelangelo would have you believe that you simply remove from a block of marble everything that isn’t the figure you want to end up with. Stained glass work does a little of both. Okay, so I’m no Michelangelo, and some would argue that stained glass work is more of a craft than an art. But I’m going to make the analogy anyway. First you take sheets of glass and cut/break/grind away the parts that aren’t your final piece. Then you take all the pieces and put them together to create something totally new.

And now for the real analogy: life is like a stained glass window (and a box of chocolates, but that analogy has already been used). Much of the time you are adding things into your life: new skills, new relationships, new knowledge... and you are creating something totally unique. Just like there is only one Mona Lisa, there is only one of you on this planet. But sometimes, in crafting your life, you have to take things away. Unnecessary obligations that suck away your time and energy, toxic relationships, material possessions that cost so much to maintain they end up owning you rather than the other way around.

It’s an ongoing process. As I position my glass pieces into the panel and fit them into the channels of the lead came, sometimes I need to pull a piece back out and rework it a bit – grind a little more off the edges, reshape it to fit more snugly. Sometimes it just plain doesn’t fit, and I need to cut a new piece. If I were the perfect artisan, I wouldn’t need to do that, but I’m not perfect. And so I make adjustments as I go.

I’ve done a commissioned window for a church before, and the project I am working on now, a 14” by 16” panel depicting a sea shell surrounded by rectangles, does not compare to the five foot high Jesus beckoning to all who pass by on the street. But that was then, and this is now. My goals have simplified. It’s not that I am settling for less. It’s that I need less, or maybe I’ve just figured out that I never needed more. Besides, my current project is destined for the nursery of my soon-to-be grandchild, and I don’t think the little tyke would want to be stared at all day by a strange man looming over the crib, no matter how benevolent he looks. Michelangelo said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” As I continue to sculpt my life, it is intriguing to see the form evolving. The pieta is carved in stone and will never change. It is done. The cool part about life is that it can be a masterpiece even before it is done. And each day as it changes, as we add in and take away – it becomes a new masterpiece.

So maybe we are all Michelangelos. And this day, whether we pick up the paint brush or the chisel, we will be creating a work of art. I think I’ll call this piece “Wednesday.”

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

I’ve got my design ready to go now for the stained glass panel I am making for my first grandchild. I know, it’s going slow, but the baby’s not due until late December, and I am looking on the project as a sort of “stained glass therapy,” taking the time to contemplate a few things about my life as I go through the stages of building this project. (In case you haven’t noticed, this theme is turning into a series of posts.)It’s not like the baby is going to be interacting with the panel right off, anyway. I don’t foresee my daughter and son-in-law sticking it in the crib so the child can teethe on the lead or smash the glass against the crib slats. What I am imagining is that they may place the panel in the window of the nursery, where the sunlight will shine through it, bringing the colors to life in a parade of hues as each day progresses from dawn to dusk. Maybe it will inspire the baby to become the next Picasso. Or maybe it will just sit on the window sill gathering dust. Now it’s time to choose the colors. Here is what I came up with:

Green – the color of growth and renewal; a celebration of nature and all things living.

Orange – for warmth and vibrancy. The glow of embers in a welcoming hearth on a cold winter day. The color of California poppies dancing in a summer breeze.

Yellow – to inspire happiness and cheerfulness and optimism.

Purple – for nobility and opulence. A reminder to appreciate the richness and preciousness of each day.

Red – the color of passion and fire, for when the baby is crying inconsolably at 3:00 a.m. Mom and Dad can walk the floor with Junior and keep telling themselves that it’s a sign of the little one’s feisty spirit and zest for life.

White – the symbol of purity and cleanliness. A reflection of the beautiful innocence and profound naiveté of youth. And the color of a fresh, clean diaper!

Brown – an earthy color that to me signifies stability, and the hope that my grandchild will find deep roots in his or her culture and family and community. (We won’t talk about diapers with this color.)

Blue – for peace, hope, and calmness. The color of clear skies and deep, placid lakes.

Pink – for softness and compassion… and in case it’s a girl.

So I have my palette in order. This was the easy part. It’s all still in the visualization stage. But now it’s time to do the work. What are the colors for motivation, energy and perseverance? I’ll be needing those quite soon.

In designing my latest stained glass panel, I decided to incorporate the shape of a sea shell into the pattern. I ultimately chose the form of a chambered nautilus, a spiraling mollusk shell that gets segmented into “chambers” as the nautilus grows. Someone mentioned to me that the nautilus shell is an example of the “golden ratio,” a mathematical ratio based on the number Phi. Phi (with upper case “p,” Greek letter Φ) represents the number 1.618… It’s reciprocal, phi (with lower case “p”, Greek letter φ), equals 0.618… Since math is all Greek to me anyway, it was hard for me to grasp the concept of Phi, but the ratio it represents can be seen in relationships all throughout the universe. The website GoldenNumber.net explains the ratio in detail (I won’t attempt to do so myself), and gives many examples of how it appears around us: in proportions of the human body, proportions of some animals, DNA, plants, music, art, geometry, the solar system, the movements in the stock market... even in the designs of the Egyptian pyramids and the design of the Star Trek spaceship, the USS Enterprise. And, as noted, in the shape of the spiral of the nautilus shell. Some people would argue that the application of the golden ratio, in many instances, is based on arbitrary points of proportion that happen to match the equation. Kind of the idea that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you set about looking for a particular pattern or ratio, you can find ways to fabricate its appearance in almost anything.

In the case of the nautilus shell, the actual shape of the shell approximates the “golden spiral” shape as defined by the golden ratio, but it is not an exact match. GoldenNumber.net tells us that, “There is, however, more than one way to create spirals with golden ratio proportions of 1.618 in their dimensions,” and goes on to demonstrate that the golden ratio can, indeed, be seen in the nautilus shell, just not in the way that is typically – and incorrectly – demonstrated. But then the plot thickens. According to Wikipedia, while the nautilus shell does not directly correlate to a golden ratio spiral, it is in the form of a logarithmic spiral. The logarithmic spiral, first described by French mathematician Rene Descartes (he called it Spira mirabilis, "the marvelous spiral"), can also be expressed mathematically. I will again defer to the internet to explain the math (I guess in this case, it’s all French to me). The logarithmic spiral also occurs in many forms in nature. Examples given by Wikipedia: the approach of a hawk to its prey; the approach of an insect to a light source; the arms of spiral galaxies; the nerves of the cornea; the bands of tropical cyclones; patterns in sunflower heads; and, of course, the shells of mollusks (i.e. the chambered nautilus shell).

So what is the significance of all of this? To me it indicates that there is a strong interrelationship between virtually everything in nature (and the aesthetics of some things manmade); that there are forces bigger than we can imagine at work in the universe; and that on some level there is, indeed, a “grand design” to everything. This is, perhaps, where science and religion come together in a very tangible way.

So whether the nautilus depicts a “golden ratio” or a “marvelous spiral,” the bottom line is that it’s a really cool design to have in my stained glass panel. What, you expected something deeper? You’ll have to wait until I brush up on my math. And my Greek.

The stained glass project I have recently undertaken is going to be a gift to my daughter and son-in-law in celebration of my first grandchild, who is due in five months. I am using small rectangles of colored glass that came in a sample pack from a glass manufacturer. The idea is to have the various colored rectangles resemble a block quilt, once assembled. It will be a very simple design, as I am trying to hedge my chances for success and build up my confidence for something more challenging down the road. Of course, the underlying fear is that I will fail at even this simple project, and drive myself deeper into the trenches of seeing myself as a failure. In truth, I don’t fear failure. I fear being a failure. In response to my previous blog post about fear of failure, a friend of mine, Mike, asked, “Doesn’t ‘success’ or ‘failure’ always relate to a goal of some sort that has been set? The words are meaningless unless something concrete has been chosen to try and accomplish; then the words apply depending upon whether or not one achieves the goal, or how far one misses it by.” Mike is right. Labeling myself as a failure or as a success is meaningless. One is never completely one or the other. We fail at some things and we succeed at others. Failing and succeeding are facts of life that occur every time we set a goal. And the world keeps spinning regardless of whether or not we fail at any given goal. Or whether we succeed, for that matter.

So I’ve got the design for the glass panel conceived in my mind. The next step is to actually draw the pattern, to capture the intangible image onto paper. And to draw a parallel here, one could note that success and failure are merely intangible concepts, too, captured only in the essence of the outcomes of our goals. I should fear them no more than I fear my project design concept.

In drawing the pattern – the blueprint – for my project, I am developing the guide that I’m going to follow. I'm setting the parameters within which I will want to work if I am going to achieve my goal. The path can take many routes, but this represents the destination. In patterning my life, I know my destination: peace. Spiritual, mental, emotional, physical… peace. The particular path I take to get there, the specific materials and methods I will use are irrelevant at this point. And successes and failures are irrelevant, as well. That’s a parameter I need to set.

It’s time to draw some lines, literally and figuratively.

“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.” ~ Earl Nightingale

It’s in my mind as a construct, an idea, a visualization of something that doesn’t yet exist. I think I can make it happen, but I have doubts, concerns, fears. I want success and acceptance and approval. And the value I place on the ultimate outcome leaves me nearly paralyzed with anxiety such that it’s difficult to even take the first steps to move this thing from imagination to reality. What if I completely fail? What am I talking about? Career choices? Finances? Relationships? Happiness? My life has kind of come to a standstill in all of those areas. It’s hard to break free of my fear of failure, and so I have given in to inertia. I don’t attempt to do things, even things that I have been successful at in the past. And yet that lack of action is, in itself, a form of failure. I am failing to even try.

So how am I going to bring my ideas to reality? Where do I begin? The answer lies, in part, in realizing that there is no such thing as a “complete” failure. Any attempt I make is a success in trying. For starters, I’m not really talking about career and money and relationships, because I can’t visualize what I want in those areas. Ultimately, in life, what I want is contentment. I am wise enough to know that contentment doesn’t necessarily come from climbing the corporate ladder to a six figure income, or from finding a mate, or from winning the lottery. And I know that I could theoretically find contentment in my life right now without changing a thing. But I’m not there yet, and even so, there are twenty-four hours a day and seven billion people to contend with and a physical body to maintain, and as long as I am in this physical form, I have to participate with life on some level. So I have to decide what to do with myself.

But rather than trying to figure out the big picture, I’m beginning with something much more concrete than the concepts I listed above. I’m going to build a stained glass panel. In the process, I’m hoping to learn about myself and gain insight into those other areas. The parallels between constructing a stained glass panel and constructing my future are endless.

I’m going to create a pattern, select the glass in colors that are pleasing to me, cut and shape the pieces, and fit them together to form a panel, a whole that – while maybe not “greater” than the sum of its parts – will give me a sense of accomplishment, will be something of beauty (I hope) to look upon, and will give me pleasure in the simple act of creativity. And as I fit together the pieces of glass, maybe I will begin to piece together some greater aspects of my life. Maybe at some point, as with the glass, I will be able to hold my life up to the light of day and see a vibrancy shining through in hues that I could hardly begin to imagine. And with that, maybe I will be content.

Welcome!

About me and this blog: Having suffered at the hands of my own negativity for far too long, I decided it was time to claim the positive energy that is available to each of us for our own benefit and for the benefit of others. Hence, I've begun the process of "lifting the weight" of depression from my soul and moving into a lighter, freer space. Please join me in finding a way to a more balanced, affirming life.